


Where Angels Fear To Tread

by grimeysociety



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awesome Darcy Lewis, Belgium (Country), Blood and Gore, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Darcy Lewis Needs a Hug, F/M, Minor Character Death, Nurses & Nursing, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 09:20:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17598548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimeysociety/pseuds/grimeysociety
Summary: Darcy Lewis is a nurse in Bastogne, and she is more alone than she lets people usually see. Soon she is drawn to Bucky Barnes, a soldier whose injury will send him home.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was an idea that turned into a whirlwind. My knowledge of the Second World War is limited, so apologies to anyone who may find this poorly researched or just... ignorant. It's not my intention. I'm just an idiot most of the time. I wanted to write Darcy as a war nurse and Belgium sprang to mind. I think this is the second or third time I've featured Belgium so I guess this is a thing I just do.... now. Also, yes - this is absolutely influenced by Band of Brothers.
> 
> Anyway. Thanks for stopping by. This is my first Wintershock fic of the year. There should be another one coming soon, pretty angsty like this one. The title for this fic came from repeatedly listening to "Where Angels Fear To Tread", the Disclosure song, but I prefer the Bow Wow Wow version, like the version that is in Marie Antoinette (the Kevin Shields Remix), which you can listen to [here](https://youtu.be/1pOwUXr_SpM).
> 
> Thank you for reading this. I wrote this in a day and didn't have it beta'd so all mistakes are my own. Sorry if you find them, I've tried to get better at solo editing.
> 
> Edit: When I first posted this fic I accidentally left out a description, and hardly anyone read it. Thank you if you were one of the few people to click on this story without a synopsis. You're my hero.

Bastogne lay under a blanket of snow and fog. Mercifully, Darcy was either in the town hall or the church attending to patients, the men from the line who came in by the dozens.

She heard they had no aid station out there and that they were running low on food and other supplies. They were sleeping huddled together in their foxholes with about an inch of snow or more falling on them every night.

Darcy was lucky if she got a moment to herself. They were spread so thin that she hardly got a chance to sit down for more than a minute at a time. She wished she’d made the most of her Sundays off when she first came to Europe. Now she was either sleeping for two hours or chasing around after the wounded.

It felt as though as soon as someone was either evacuated or returned to the line, ten or so more soldiers came in. The stretchers were a steady stream and soon Darcy dreaded the cries for nurses that came from arriving medics on their trucks.

It was a few days before Christmas and she stopped hoping for anything to change any time soon. She kept her head down instead of longing for the days when all Darcy worried about was whether she could buy comics with her baby brother.

She tried to stay distant from the men that died in front of her. A few years ago she’d never seen a dead body before, and now they were starting to pile up outside because the Germans managed to cut off the roads.

One night as she came back from her hasty dinner of stew and a stale roll, another nurse named Cindy who happened to be Darcy’s only friend relayed her new information.

“We have to be sparing with the morphine,” her blonde counterpart murmured in her accented English, her hair looking frizzier than ever when she took her cap off to wipe at her sweaty brow. “Bandages are low, too.”

They were standing in the church together surrounded by men laying in their cots, candles lit everywhere with people moving around in the background. This was a brief respite, and Cindy gave a long sigh.

“You hear from Freddie?” Darcy asked, and Cindy gave a small smile.

Her romantic stories about the American soldier in France helped Darcy occasionally escape. She nodded at Darcy, looking relieved.

“Finally. A letter this afternoon,” Cindy said, and Darcy smiled.

“Nothing dirty?”

“ _No_ ,” Cindy hissed as she hit Darcy’s arm lightly. Her cheeks reddened and Darcy tittered.

“Too bad,” she replied.

Cindy rolled her eyes, looking at Darcy’s hands.

“You got a smoke?”

“Yeah,” Darcy said, her hand going into the pocket of her dress, finding her pack of Lucky Strikes and her box of matches.

“Where’d you get those?” Cindy said with a gasp and widened eyes. “Got any dirty stories to tell _me_?”

Darcy stopped smiling and remembered a soldier giving them to her when she finished cleaning his wound. She cringed.

“I shouldn’t have taken them. Now he’s gonna want a date or somethin’,” Darcy muttered, pushing the whole pack into Cindy’s hand with her matches.

Cindy just giggled, and then looked over her shoulder and moved closer to Darcy to whisper.

“New one over there got hit by a mortar. He’ll need his bandage changed soon. He’s pretty out of it.”

Darcy’s eyes travelled to Cindy’s face to behind them where a man lay with his eyes closed. In his unconscious state, he looked serene.

“What happened?”

“He lost his arm.”

Darcy’s heart sank. He’d be going home, then. She let out a sigh.

“Want to know what he said when he lost his arm out there?” Cindy asked, and Darcy nodded slightly. “He said, ‘Give me my wristwatch’. It was on his arm on the ground.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Darcy hissed.

-

Darcy went back to the soldier whose cigarettes she took earlier and he was wide awake, smiling up at her crookedly.

“Hey there, beautiful,” he whispered, and Darcy hid her smirk.

“Private, I need to see your bandage.”

He held his arm out to her. “The other one said it’s not my artery, thank God. Her name’s Sandy? Sally?”

“Cindy,” Darcy corrected, and she knelt closer, pushing back his sleeve to unpeel the bandage.

His gash was superficial and most likely he’d be back on the line tomorrow.

“If it was your artery, you’d have been dead.”

“Yikes, sweetheart,” the soldier muttered, and Darcy shrugged slightly.

Darcy felt his eyes on her, watching her face as she concentrated on cleaning the wound.

He hissed, reflexively pulling his arm back from her swab.

“Hey, quit wriggling.”

“I’m trying not to, sweetheart,” he retorted, gritting his teeth. “That shit hurts.”

Darcy glanced up from her work into his eyes, and he looked sheepish.

“Pardon my language,” he muttered, and Darcy looked away, wrapping a clean bandage around his forearm.

“You enjoying my smokes?” he asked, and Darcy narrowed her eyes at the space just below his hairline, avoiding his gaze.

He seemed harmless enough but she knew nurses grew close to patients all too often. That was how Cindy and Freddie happened.

“I gave them away.”

“That hurts, sweetheart.”

Darcy got up and made to move away from his cot but his uninjured arm caught her around the waist, pulling her toward him, her whole body flat against his with his mouth close to her throat.

“Wilkinson, leave her alone.”

The soldier holding her let go, and Darcy moved off of him, looking toward the source of the gruff voice.

The soldier with his left arm cut off above the elbow was staring at them, and Darcy felt the heat rise in her cheeks, and she swallowed.

“Apologize,” the soldier commanded, and Wilkinson nodded, shamefaced.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

Darcy believed him, but she wasn’t ready to forgive that easily. “My name is Darcy.”

“I’m sorry, Darcy,” Wilkinson amended, “Ma’am.”

Darcy pursed her lips slightly, frowning still. “Alright.”

She moved away, deciding she had to talk to the other soldier sooner or later. Once Wilkinson apologised he’d looked toward the ceiling, and his gaze was glued there as Darcy moved toward him.

“Barnes, isn’t it?” she murmured, and his gaze flitted to hers and then back up again.

“Yeah. Sergeant Barnes,” he muttered, his voice rough. He blinked several times before looking back at her, eyes narrowing. “You’re American.”

Darcy nodded, finding a stool and scooting over to him.

He lay with his upper half uncovered by the sheet, his right arm through a sleeve of his uniform with his other side partially covered by another blanket. Darcy would need to look into giving him another shirt with a modified left sleeve. She could sew one in a few minutes if there was still a lull.

She did not let her eyes linger on his left side too long for his sake.

“I thought I imagined your accent,” he said, and Darcy’s eyes met his again. “The hell you doin’ in Bastogne?”

“I came to help, like everyone else,” Darcy said, and he looked puzzled.

“Where you from?” he asked.

“Philly,” she said, and he smiled.

“Brooklyn.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” she muttered, her hands going to his left side.

She moved the blanket away and saw a mass of a bandage around his injury, seeing congealed blood settling in every pore of what remained of his arm.

“I need to clean this,” she whispered, and Barnes looked away, nodding.

She ran off to find supplies. Aware of the morphine issue, Darcy swiped the bottle of brandy from the back of a cupboard. She trailed back to Barnes and settled beside him.

He glanced at the brandy and then looked at Darcy.

“It’s hooch, for the pain,” she said.

She poured him a generous glass and handed it to him. She got to work, taking apart the wad of bandages as she assessed the damage.

The surgeons did a good job. Stitches were pristine, and as she cleaned the area Barnes kept his gaze straight ahead while he drank, his jaw ticking.

“They didn’t give me morphine before,” he grunted, as Darcy ripped at a bedsheet for new bandages. “The medic was running low.”

He said no to morphine when his arm was blown off. Darcy shook her head slightly as she wrapped the bandages tightly around him.

Sitting this close to him, she could smell the dirt on his face.

He was very handsome.

“You write a letter yet to send to anyone about – about this?” Darcy asked, and Barnes shook his head, finishing his drink with a steady gulp. “Your sweetheart should know.”

“Don’t have one of those,” he muttered.

“You married?” she asked, and he shook his head again.

That was wild to her. He was handsome and brave, and he seemed to have the good sense to not try and grab her like Wilkinson did.

“What about you?” he asked, and Darcy shook her head, laughing a little.

“No. Besides, we’re not allowed,” she said, meaning the nurses. They were quite stringent with those rules, especially if a nurse got pregnant, too.

She glanced at his empty glass.

“You right-handed?” she asked, and Barnes nodded. “Well, I suppose that’s somethin’.”

She poured him more brandy, looking him over to see if she missed anything.

His eyes began to droop, the liquor starting to work. Soon he’d be sleeping, and Darcy hoped he’d get a ride out of Bastogne as soon as possible.

He deserved some kind of peace for fighting like that, losing that much.

As she expected, he was falling asleep in seconds, and she took the glass from him, watching his steady breathing. Darcy rose a hand and pushed back his hair, fingers stroking his forehead.

“The poor dear,” came Cindy’s voice, and Darcy turned her head to see her friend standing behind her.

“He’ll be okay.”

For the first time in weeks Darcy found herself hoping for something.


	2. Part Two

Several hours later, Darcy asked after supplies.

The head surgeon shook his head at her. He was American like her, but much less warm. Darcy wondered if he was ever nice before the war. Perhaps the war had done that to him, made him so distant from his patients that all he could do was shake his head at her.

“Krauts everywhere. This is it.”

“What about evacuees?” she asked, and he looked exasperated.

“Lewis, this is it. You’ve seen the bodies outside.”

“You mean the soldiers,” she snapped, and another nurse walking past them with her arms full of bloody bandages shot her a look.

Darcy knew she came across as petulant to the other nursing staff. She stuck out because she was the passionate American girl with an atrocious accent, always touching the sick.

“Do we have more morphine?” Darcy asked, trying to keep her voice level.

The head surgeon shrugged.

“You get a medic coming in here, you beg, you steal, whatever.”

“That’s what _they’re_ doin’ when they come _here_ ,” Darcy replied.

There was a yell outside and the head surgeon looked toward the ceiling, muttering to himself about Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

They were distracted for three hours as a half dozen stretchers came in, some of the injured crying out. Two of them died, which Darcy thought was pretty good, considering.

“If we run out of space, they might put them in the loft with us,” Cindy said under her breath to Darcy as they walked through the masses together.

“Can we pick which ones?” Darcy teased, and Cindy scoffed.

Darcy was desperate to hold onto something other than death. She tried to smother the darkness with her lame jokes and found herself wanting to volunteer for the soldiers that came in yesterday.

Wilkinson was still flirting with her easily, eager to get back to the line.

“Someone said you might be concussed, that’s why you’re stayin’,” she said, as he tugged at her wrist when she walked by.

“How much longer, Darcy, sweetheart?”

She broke into a smile despite herself. “Soon, Private Wilkinson.”

“I’m Donnie,” he said, and Darcy nodded. “Donnie and Darcy. Like it?”

“Huh,” she replied, pretending to consider him. “I’ll think about it.”

She heard a soft chuckle close by and glanced toward Barnes who was looking less grey than when she last checked on him. His eyes were warm and staring at her from where he lay.

-

“How many purple hearts you got?” Darcy asked Barnes as she cleaned his arm.

No alcohol this time. Barnes refused it, said he wanted to be sharp. Darcy couldn’t think of why he wanted to be, since he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

She tried not to think about the piles outside, or the dwindling supplies. Then she realized Barnes refused the brandy because he thought someone else might need it sooner than him.

“Three,” he said, and Darcy’s eyebrows rose.

“So this will make four,” Darcy said, and he nodded. “Why you always gettin’ in trouble, Sergeant Barnes?”

“Bucky,” he said, and Darcy saw his face change once she looked at him in the eye again.

It was her own fault for sitting so close. It made her aware of her own breathing. He seemed to soften under her gaze, which only made Darcy nervous.

She needed to get a grip. She was in the middle of cleaning his wound, and soon he’d be sent back home, and she’d still be in Bastogne.

“Bucky,” she whispered.

“The mortar that hit me took out three other guys,” he said. His voice was quieter, like it was something he was ashamed to admit to.

He thought this was his own fault. She knew that in dire times people tended to blame themselves for things beyond their control because the idea of not having agency was unbearable. There was usually a stubbornness to it, too.

“You’re lucky.”

The words slipped out and she immediately regretted them. She had no idea what it was like out there. She’d never even fired a gun in her life. She dealt with the consequences, but that wasn’t the same as being out there in the forest.

“Sorry, that was stupid to say,” she whispered hastily, cutting off whatever Bucky intended to say.

“It’s okay, doll,” he heard him murmur, and she swallowed hard.

Before she could say anything else, his hand found hers and he squeezed.

She left him without another word, feeling her stomach do flips with each quick step.

-

Cindy grew distraught. Freddie was meant to send her a letter twice a week and his replies were always on time, and now the letters from the outside were being blocked.

“He could be dead,” she whispered to Darcy, who shook her head.

“Don’t say that. You’ll hear from him soon and I’ll be the first one to tell you how silly you were – ”

For the first time ever, Cindy dissolved into tears while they sat outside sharing a smoke.

“Cindy,” Darcy murmured, squeezing her friend’s shoulder.

“I’m so sick of this war. I want to go home.”

Cindy was originally from the north of Belgium, and Darcy never heard her mention her homesickness before.

“I’d rather never treat another man again. I’m so tired.”

“Cindy,” Darcy repeated, a little sharper. “Stop it.”

Cindy shook her head, snort and tears on her face. Darcy couldn’t stand it. Instead of comforting her like she usually would, she got up from her seat and stalked off, feeling herself growing numb.

-

She was picking bits of tree splinters out of a soldier’s thigh when someone came running into the church, yelling:

“It’s a drop!”

“Oh, thank God!” Darcy cried, as several people cheered.

She dressed the bandage quickly and raced outside, seeing parachutes in the sky, boxes floating toward the ground with other packages already landing around the town.

Darcy exchanged a glance with Cindy and the moment from earlier was forgiven, Cindy’s eyes still puffy but now she was grinning at the supplies they were packing away.

“We’re drowning in morphine, now,” Cindy said, and Darcy smiled back at her.

It was such a relief. They were considering tearing shirts off dead bodies outside to boil and use as bandages just a few hours ago.

She saw Donnie off, who was over the moon. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and walked out the door. Several nurses gave Darcy disgusted looks and Darcy just rolled her eyes.

This caused Bucky Barnes to laugh once more, and she felt herself blush.

“What?” she snapped, and he shrugged.

She came over and sat on his bed, scooting closer to check his bandage. She managed to cut the left sleeve off a shirt and fold the material over so it fitted him better.

It forced her to unbutton his shirt to get better access to his wound, which only made Darcy’s fingers clumsy.

She was always ripping off clothes and seeing men naked but Bucky Barnes made butterflies flutter in her stomach.

Her fingers brushed along the skin of his chest and she felt how warm he was, and she didn’t dare look him in the eye. His bandage needed changing and she needed to act like a nurse, not some flustered girl who’d never gone further than first base.

She held her breath, and only let it go once she turned away to get his clean bandage.

His eyes were on her, she could feel them. It made her clumsy, it made her a bad nurse. She swallowed, dabbing at him with the swab.

He grunted, and she wondered if he made that sound while he did other things. She hated her mind for going there, but he was the one who bit his lip with his intense stare still on her while she worked.

“You’d think I’d be used to the pain by now, but that shit kills me.”

She thought about jokingly asking if she could kiss it better. ‘It’ being wherever she wanted, and then she felt ashamed, her face flushing.

He couldn’t read her mind, thank Christ. She just nodded, replacing his bandage and wrapping it tightly.

“You think you can talk to someone about me goin’ back?” Bucky asked after several moments of silence as Darcy packed away dirty bandages.

“Last I heard you won’t be evacuated for a while.”

“No, doll. _Back_ ,” he said, tilting his head in the general direction of the door.

Darcy stared at him. “Bucky, that’s insane.”

She couldn’t imagine a man in his condition doing anything good. That would be suicide, and they couldn’t possibly be that desperate out there, to have a maimed man back fighting.

“I can’t stay here,” he whispered. “Darcy, I can’t.”

Darcy grit her teeth, wishing she didn’t care about his feelings. She tried her best to ignore how broken his voice sounded, how desperate he seemed.

“That won’t work on me,” she said, levelling his gaze. “You can’t go back there. You’re going home the second there’s a breakthrough.”

“Darcy –”

“Don’t,” she snapped, and she got up abruptly and walked off in the other direction.

She wished she wasn’t so obviously angry. The head surgeon nearly ran into her while she ran back with Bucky’s dirty bandages.

He shot her an irritated look.

“Lewis, you should get some rest.”

“I’m fine.”

“Lewis,” he said, a little harsher. “You’re no use to anyone when you get like this.”

She did her best to broadcast the words in her mind, _FUCK YOU_ , shooting him a venomous stare.

“Fine,” she snapped, slamming a cupboard.

She walked off out into the street, feeling eyes on her from all sides. She walked around the corner to the staircase behind the church and went up into the loft.

She lay down and didn’t close her eyes, fuming in silence while she heard distant gunfire.


	3. Part Three

She must have fallen asleep because she was suddenly being shaken awake by a nurse with dark hair and wide eyes.

“Darcy,” she said desperately, and Darcy heard the distant yells of men and felt her heart in her throat.

“ _Combien?_ ” Darcy asked. How many men were down there waiting to die?

 _“Trente-huit_ ,” the girl replied while they ran, Darcy nearly stumbling as their adrenaline pumped.

Thirty-eight. Heavens above, there were already over two hundred men lying in the hall and the church. They sped down and stopped abruptly at the first few stretchers.

“Who first?” Darcy asked, and an American medic gestured toward a man with blood spurting from his neck.

They’d have seconds to rescue him. The soldier was struggling to breathe. He was all white skin and red blood and very little else in between. The colours seemed to blend as Darcy raced, desperate to staunch the flow.

It didn’t work. He spluttered and they tried everything to make it so he could breathe, but he lost too much. Darcy sighed, hearing his last breath as his eyes turned to glass.

The rest of the men were easier to treat, but ten others died in the night. Once Darcy got a break it was dawn again; she’d lost a whole day somehow without sitting down once.

“You’re gonna pass out,” a voice said as Darcy stared across the mass of sleeping bodies surrounding her.

She turned her head, knowing it was Bucky calling out to her, and she didn’t know what to say.

She was beyond tired. She’d stretched beyond needing sleep, but she was staring to shake, and shaking hands were a hazard.

She came over to him, sinking to his bed.

“You got a smoke?”

“Sure,” he replied, his voice soft. “Can I come with you?”

Darcy paused, the words taking longer to register.

“Okay.”

He walked out with her, his blanket wrapped around his shoulders while they sat shivering in a spot behind the church where Darcy usually sat.

Bucky took out two cigarettes and put them between his lips, fumbling a little but still managing to light the match he carried. He inhaled, pulling one cigarette out.

He kept it between his fingers and instead of taking it in her own hand, Darcy leaned forward and wrapped her lips around it and inhaled.

It was such a brief exchange but Darcy felt the heat pool low in her gut, knowing her mouth was where Bucky’s once was, his eyes glued to hers.

They smoked in silence for some time, and Darcy grew used to the sound of their breathing together. She couldn’t help thinking of another life, when she could be doing this far away from the steady rumbles and gunfire of the forest beyond the town.

Her arousal from earlier dissipated somewhat as she spied a shoe on the ground with a bullet hole.

“Haven’t seen that in a while.”

“What, the shoe?” Bucky asked, and Darcy nodded, taking a long drag and exhaling in the corner of her mouth. Bucky exhaled through his nostrils. “I’ve seen a bullet in a bible. Bullet in a canteen.”

He smirked, revealing more of his boyish charm that made Darcy smile back at him.

“Bullet in the ass.”

She threw her head back, laughing.

“People get shot in the ass all the time, doll,” Bucky continued, and she just kept laughing. “You’d know that better than me.”

Darcy sighed, her laughter dying down as she flicked ash onto the ground. She caught Bucky staring at her.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what, doll?” he murmured, taking a drag from his cigarette while Darcy struggled to find the right words.

“I – I don’t know,” she threw back, knowing her words had little bite.

Bucky threw her off completely. He had to know that. She got the feeling he did by how he was looking at her.

“You just can’t look at me like that, Barnes,” she added. “Not when you’re trying to escape back to the line. Not when you’re gonna be sent away.”

Bucky looked away finally, nodding. “Okay, doll.”

They were silent once more, until Bucky finished his cigarette and mashed it beneath his boot in the snow.

“You don’t think we’d be good together?”

Darcy froze with the cigarette still in her mouth, feeling her face redden with Bucky’s eyes on her once more.

“Bucky.”

She didn’t know what to say. People did things like this during the war. People felt like they had to.

He felt too close. She crossed the line by letting him sit with her. He should be inside, keeping warm. She shouldn’t be entertaining anything like this happening.

Their eyes met and she didn’t want to look away. He was trying to read her. She knew she didn’t really want to turn him down.

“Darcy!”

Cindy’s scream pierced the air and Darcy’s gaze ripped away from Bucky to see her friend waving frantically, her blue eyes wide with terror.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Darcy said, and she was up, throwing her cigarette in the snow.

Bucky ran alongside her toward the front of the church where stretchers had pulled up.

Darcy immediately recognized one soldier who lay with a gunshot wound to his stomach.

“Wilkinson,” Bucky whispered from behind Darcy, and Darcy felt his hand on the small of her back.

“Get him out of here,” snapped Cindy, but Bucky refused.

“Let me help.”

Darcy couldn’t concentrate on much else but the way the blood was gushing from Wilkinson’s midsection.

They moved him into the supply closet, desperate to plug the wound, and Darcy prayed for something to stick but the blood just kept coming and coming.

Wilkinson was out of it, watching this happen to him with a kind of blissful absence that shook Darcy. He seemed so calm for someone gravely injured.

She and Cindy kept at the wound, watching as everything became soaked through. Bucky even began grabbing more things for them to use.

“We need a surgeon,” Cindy hissed, her voice on the edge of hysterical.

“I need to find the artery,” Darcy retorted. “Goddamn it, I need to _find the artery._ ”

They just kept smearing blood around and then Donnie coughed. Darcy looked into his eyes, pushing against his stomach with the wad of bandages with all her strength, feeling sweat on her back.

Donnie rose a shaking hand and Darcy felt his thumb on her lip and chin, something wet. She could taste his blood.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” she heard him whisper. “Sweetheart.”

His hand fell and Darcy watched his eyes go blank as his stomach still bled through, and she felt the wetness between her fingers trickle down to her wrists.

“Doll. Doll, he’s gone,” Bucky whispered, and Darcy finally looked away.

There were footsteps and the head surgeon came in, looking outraged and covered in blood.

“Get him out of here,” he snarled at Cindy, and she took Bucky by his elbow and steered him out.

Darcy let her breath go and the surgeon’s face changed.

“Nurse Lewis, go wash your face.”

Darcy nodded dumbly and walked out. No-one else was dying, just Donnie. Darcy walked outside, the snow crunching beneath her feet.

Minutes ago she was laughing. Now all she could do was walk right up to a stack of dead soldiers piled on top of one another, their skin blue and ruined from exposure. They were frozen solid. All she did was stare and stare while Donnie’s blood dried on her skin.

There were footsteps behind her and Cindy’s fingers threaded through Darcy’s while they stood together.

“They need you back inside. We need soup.”

Darcy nodded.

“I married him.”

Darcy stared at Cindy with a puzzled expression.

“I married Freddie. It’s why I get so worked up about him. Truth be told, I’d get upset about him even if we weren’t married,” Cindy said, shaking her head slightly.

They kept looking at the bodies and Darcy wondered if they’d ever be moved. It felt like the cold would never lift, and it would be one hell of a job.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Darcy murmured, and Cindy squeezed her hand.

“I know you won’t,” her friend replied.


	4. Part Four

Something changed inside Darcy and she felt raw. When she handed Bucky his supper of soup his fingers wrapped around her wrist and she didn’t acknowledge him.

She was scared. She was frightened of her own feelings. She thought that if she let something happen between them, the floodgates would open and she’d never stop crying.

“Doll.”

She moved away, leaving him in his bed while she attended other men.

She didn’t sleep. She thought of Bucky in his little cot with his shining eyes and big hands all over her. She thought of kissing him, wondering how he tasted. She thought of kissing him breathless, her tongue in his mouth, and wished she wasn’t in Bastogne.

Two days she spent with her head down, asking Cindy to be with Bucky instead of her. If he asked about her, Darcy didn’t know. She spent too long treating patients to stop herself from thinking about Bucky too much.

Not that he ever really left her mind, especially at night when she lay alone. She tended to sleep when Cindy didn’t, taking it in shifts with cigarettes snuck when they could spare it.

It came to Christmas Eve and Darcy thought of her family in Philly, wondering if she could really ever go back after all this.

She tried reading something Cindy gave her, a children’s book with less complicated French so that Darcy could comprehend the words, but every so often she thought of the forest outside and couldn’t relax.

There was a knock on her door and Darcy lost her place, pursing her lips.

“Come in, Cindy. I’m decent.”

A throat was cleared beyond the door and Darcy’s stomach flipped. It sounded distinctly deeper than any sound Cindy ever made.

“Doll?”

Bucky’s voice was soft and quiet, and Darcy found herself on her feet in seconds, her book forgotten on her bed.

“Uh,” she replied, unsure what to say.

“I’ll go if you want,” he said, and Darcy felt her heart start to hammer.

“No, don’t,” she called out, biting her lip.

She walked over to the door, her hand wrenching at the handle to open it. They hadn’t even kissed, hadn’t gone to some dance before or anything and all she could think of was how sad it would be if she turned him away.

Bucky stared down at her with the door open, dressed in his modified shirt she made him, looking rumpled from sleep.

“I wanted to talk,” he said, looking somewhat alarmed, like he hadn’t thought his plan through.

Darcy was standing with her feet bare just in her long nightgown. She felt the cool air on her shoulders and shivered, and Bucky’s hand came up to rub her skin.

“I’m sorry, you should get back to bed.”

“You didn’t wake me,” she whispered.

She looked around behind him to see if anyone was spying on them somehow but they were alone, and she tugged at his shirt.

“Come on,” she said, and he stepped inside.

The door shut behind him with a soft thump and he swallowed, somehow looking younger.

“You didn’t see me all day. I wanted to wait up for you in case you came by but Cindy said you’d be sleeping.”

“Cindy knows you came up here?”

“Yeah, she said she’d cover me,” he whispered.

Darcy felt her stomach flip once more, thinking of Cindy sneaking Bucky up here to see her. Her friend knew better than anyone what it was like to sneak around to see a lover.

“I couldn’t see you,” she blurted. “It’s dangerous.”

Bucky looked nervous, waiting for her to say more.

“I’m really scared,” she added.

He nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop it,” she hissed, and his gaze snapped up to hers. “Stop saying you’re sorry.”

He pressed his lips together and gave a short nod.

Darcy took a deep breath, her hand going to stroke his hair and his face, her thumb rubbing under his eye.

“I thought I dreamt it,” he murmured. “You touchin’ me like this when you gave me the hooch.”

“You didn’t,” Darcy whispered.

“I know that now.”

He dipped his head and caught her in a kiss, his hand cupping her face while she melted into him, gasping.

He hardly gave her a second to gather her thoughts as he kissed her again, with a kind of hunger that had the fire ignite in Darcy’s belly. Her arousal was like a rush reaching every edge, and her hands were in his hair as she kissed back.

Bucky’s tongue was tentative at first and then dominating, sweeping into her mouth as she let him inside. They broke apart to catch their breaths, Bucky’s mouth looking wet and pink as Darcy stared at it.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” she confessed. “I can’t sleep. I hate knowing you’re all by yourself down there in your bed.”

He kissed her lips lightly, chuckling. “I’m not alone with all those guys down there.”

“You know what I mean,” she whispered. He was telling her not to worry but that was all Darcy seemed to do when it came to Bucky.

They kissed again, mouths slanting together as Bucky’s hips pressed into hers, so warm against her.

“I want you,” she whispered. “Please, I want you.”

She could feel her resolve was long gone. She knew she sounded so desperate, not sure what to do with such a strong feeling of longing. She’d been in denial.

“I thought about you up here, sleeping without me,” he replied, and Darcy wanted to devour him. “I dreamt about you thinking of me with your hand between your legs.”

Darcy knew she never touched herself anymore. She was too nervous about her feelings for him to even fantasize that vividly, but she wanted relief now.

“Bucky,” she whispered, her voice coming out like half a whine. “Please.”

She wanted to feel him everywhere. She wanted to see all of him. She pulled him back the couple steps to her bed, the back of her legs hitting the mattress.

He climbed on top of her, settling into the cradle of her hips, and Darcy felt the hard heat of his cock between her legs and kissed him again, tugging at his hair.

She didn’t have to do much. She could feel she was wet and needy between her legs already, and she moved back on her elbows, hands going under her nightgown to find the waistband of her panties.

She lifted her hips, Bucky moving off her and watching as she pulled her underwear down and kicked them off. They fell to the ground.

She shoved blindly at the book beside her and it fell to the floor with a soft thud.

The re-joined in another kiss, Darcy’s hands going to the front of Bucky’s pants and finding the button and releasing it.

The sound of Bucky panting made her feel wild, craving nothing more than what he had hidden away from her beneath his fly, and she undid it, tugging everything down.

All the while, Bucky’s hand roved Darcy’s chest, kneading at her tits beneath the material of her night gown as they kissed. His hand darted around, never truly settling, and Darcy knew he missed having his left one.

She pulled her nightgown up past her hips, and then her hands were back to Bucky, her fingertips brushing his bare ass as she adjusted beneath him.

She didn’t have to beg, he wanted her just as much as she wanted him, more of a fondness to his kiss as he sank into her.

Darcy arched her back as they both gave soft gasps. He hardly moved for a while, their mouths not quite closing as they kissed again, breaths short and hot.

The gasps turned to moans of pleasure, and Darcy was lost in his eyes, the world fading away with each slow grind of his hips.

“Go faster,” she whispered, and Bucky went deeper, not quicker.

“It’ll be over too soon if I go fast,” he warned, but she shook her head.

“We’ll do it again.”

“Don’t joke about that,” he retorted, and Darcy saw he was serious, probably thinking that this was a one-time thing.

She felt like it was anything but that. All she wanted was to be with him.

“I’m not,” she whispered, and her hands went to his ass and she squeezed, encouraging him.

Her touch seemed to embolden him, as his hips snapped, causing her to cry out, the sound muffled in the blanket beneath her when she turned her head away.

He drove into her, giving her no time to recover, pushing in and out of her while he captured her in another greedy kiss.

She was so close. She’d been buzzing just beneath an orgasm for God knows how long, and Bucky picked up on the way her breath hitched as her thighs began to shake.

He panted and she loved the sound, and knew she loved him, and loved the way his bare skin smacked against hers.

He fumbled, his hand that held her hip now going between her legs and rubbing. Darcy felt her toes curl.

“Come for me, come for me, come for me – ”

White hot pleasure shot through her, and Darcy clamped down on Bucky’s cock with a half sob. She kept tensing and relaxing, feeling wrung out.

Bucky just sounded more rushed like he’d run a marathon, his voice strained above her.

“I’m gonna come for you, doll.”

The declaration was a warning, and she nodded, knowing the risk if he finished inside her. She brought him down for another kiss, all teeth and tongue.

“I wish you could come inside me,” she whispered, and Bucky panted, nodding.

“Me, too, doll,” he huffed. “Me, too.”

He was erratic with his thrusts, losing momentum as Darcy watched him fall apart. He pulled out, his cock heavy and warm against her stomach as he grunted.

Darcy was quicker than him, taking hold of his shaft and jerking him off, and he came on her skin, chanting her name.

They lay together for a minute, both of them panting.

Eventually, Bucky lifted his head, looking down between them.

“I should get you a rag.”


	5. Part Five

She stirred awake with her head resting on Bucky’s chest, his hand shaking her shoulder gently.

“Doll, it’s been an hour. I gotta get back.”

She sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Okay.”

She didn’t know how the hell she was supposed to sleep without him now, but she helped tidy his hair and tuck everything back into place. He looked at her mirror for a second.

“Okay, I’m goin’ now,” he murmured, and Darcy nodded from her spot on her bed.

He walked toward the door and gave a short wave.

“Night, doll.”

“Night, Bucky,” she whispered back, wishing she said _I love you_.

-

The next morning Darcy was ambushed by Cindy, who grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her into the supply closet to interrogate her.

“So?”

“Keep your voice down,” Darcy hissed, and Cindy covered her mouth to suppress her giggle.

She rolled her eyes at her friend, who kept shaking with laughter for a good minute while Darcy raised her eyebrow.

“You finished?”

“Yeah,” Cindy breathed, fanning herself. “God, it feels so good to not be the only one sneaking around. You’re being careful, right?”

“What? Oh,” Darcy replied, realizing. “Yeah. He didn’t – yeah. We’re being careful.”

She looked at her hands. Cindy nudged her.

“Try to be less obvious.”

“Alright.”

Later that afternoon when Darcy made her rounds, she finally went to see Bucky.

He was sleeping but stirred awake as she sat down, inspecting him.

“Hey, doll.”

He sounded sleepy but blissful, and Darcy tried her hardest to not smile back at him and failed.

She busied herself with his shirt, unbuttoning it to get access to his bandage.

“Hey,” he said again, softer. “I want a kiss.”

“Are you serious?” she muttered back at him, and he nodded, shameless.

Darcy glanced behind them for a second, seeing no other nurses or medics, just sleeping patients.

She supposed it mattered less if any of the soldiers took any notice of them.

She leaned forward slightly as Bucky moved up, brushing his lips with her own. She remembered last night. In seconds, her mouth opened to his as Bucky grew needy, his tongue probing and hooking into her desire, drawing her out of her barely composed state.

She drew back just as fast as she moved toward him, her hand on his chest to stop him. Bucky grumbled, pressing his forehead to her shoulder before sighing.

“Alright,” he conceded.

Darcy went back to cleaning and redressing his wound in silence, ignoring the tension between them. She placed her hands on either side of his head to readjust the pillow, teasing him a little with how close she bent over him where he lay.

Her hand brushed something under the pillow and she frowned. She pulled out a small square wrapped in brown paper with a string around it.

“What’s this?” she murmured, and Bucky just gave her a knowing smirk.

“It’s for you. Open it.”

She tore at the paper. It was chocolate. 

“Bucky,” she began, but he shook his head.

“Merry Christmas.”

Darcy managed to forget about the holiday entirely, and stared at the chocolate bar.

“I didn’t get you anything.”

“You’ve been busy.”

Darcy opened her mouth to protest some more, but the head surgeon called out her name and she whipped her head toward the sound.

“See?” Bucky said.

She ran over to the head surgeon who was treating a man with broken fingers.

“Nurse Lewis, you need to find someone else to treat other than Sargent Barnes every second of the day.”

“Sir, I-”

She was about to tell him that it was totally unfair to make that assumption as she just spent the last eight hours with other patients, but he narrowed his eyes at her warningly.

“Yes. Yes, sir,” she mumbled.

There was a suddenly rumble overhead, and then the sound of an engine.

“Now what?” the head surgeon muttered, leaving the soldier for Darcy to attend to.

He stalked out of the church and the rumbles continued.

“Those planes sound awful low,” said the soldier with broken fingers, frowning up at the ceiling. “That can’t be good.”

Darcy’s heart pounded, as she understood what was happening.

“We need to get out.”

“What?”

Darcy dashed toward the door, and then came an almighty bang from outside and she shrank back, covering her head with her arms.

“Fucking krauts!” someone yelled, and Darcy dared to take her arms away.

It must have happened elsewhere, whatever exploded. She ran into the street and her heart sank.

There was a hole in the roof of the town hall where it had caved in on itself.

“Nurse!” someone screamed, and Darcy sprang into action.

She raced over to the front of the town hall, her feet never moving as fast as she liked. The front door was gone, bits of wood strewn across the entrance.

More rumbles overhead. The scream must have come from –

Darcy stopped dead in her tracks, seeing nothing but broken stone, wooden rafters on the ground and limbs, just limbs everywhere under the rubble.

“Darcy,” came the voice, weaker than before.

“I’m coming to get you. Just hold on.”

She found him, the head surgeon with his head just above the sea of rubble. He had a long gash down the side of his face.

“My legs are crushed,” he whispered. “My whole body, really.”

“I’ll get someone to help get you out,” Darcy said.

“You know I’m not gonna make it,” he replied. He was struggling to breathe.

“No, I don’t think you will,” she murmured, looking down for a moment, trying to push away a wave of tears.

“Hey, hey,” he said, and Darcy moved closer until her eyes were level with his, and she found his hand under some stone.

She wasn’t sure he could even feel her touch but she squeezed. It just occurred to her that he’d never called her by her first name before.

“Doc, I don’t know what I’m meant to call you,” she admitted, and he coughed.

“Eugene.”

“Eugene,” she said, ashamed she never got to know him. “I’ll stay with you.”

He nodded, and she was true to her word. The rumbling had begun to fade, and Darcy knew she was needed elsewhere.

After a minute of watching him die, Eugene opened his mouth, struggling to speak.

“Darcy… you’re gonna be fine.”

Darcy sobbed, but didn’t take her eyes off him, squeezing his hand harder.

“Eugene –”

He was dead, staring straight ahead while Darcy could hear people running around outside.

She got up, brushing her hands on her front before dashing back out into the street.

She almost ran straight into Bucky, who was staring at her with wide eyes.

“Jesus Christ,” he gasped. “I thought you were in there, doll.”

“I’m okay,” she said, and his hand went to her face as he checked her over.

“Jesus Christ,” he said again.

“Really. I’m fine – ”

He cut her off with a brief, forceful kiss, and once they parted his voice shook with emotion.

“I thought you were dead.”

Her hands went to his face. “I need to get back. I ran straight into there without thinking about you or the people in the church –”

“You did what your instincts told you to do,” he replied, and she shook her head.

“I abandoned you,” she said, feeling the tears coming back.

“The church didn’t get hit,” he said. “And you’re a good nurse.”

They ran back into the church to find people to help move the rubble. Over the next few hours, they found no survivors, and Darcy knew Eugene’s final moments must have been a fluke.

Bone tired and feeling like her hands would never be clean again, Darcy stumbled back to the loft where she found Cindy lying face down.

“You’re up.”

Cindy mumbled something in French into her pillow and turned her head, squinting at Darcy.

“You’re joking.”

“No. It’s been four hours already.”

Cindy grumbled under her breath, flattening her hair as she made her way toward the door. She glanced back at her bed longingly, and Darcy felt guilty before remembering she hadn’t slept in nearly twenty-four hours.

Darcy closed the door behind her and let her head fall back against the wood, sighing.

“One, two, three…”

She got to nine before there was a knock on the door and she smiled, turning to open it.

“You were slower than I expected,” she said brightly, but Bucky didn’t return her smile.

He bit his lip.

“What is it?”

“Doll, they broke through.”

“What, the –?”

“The Armored division broke through. Bastogne’s got a way out.”

Darcy didn’t know what to feel. There was relief that people could be evacuated and more supplies would come through, but that meant –

“You have to go.”

Bucky drooped visibly. “Yeah, doll.”

She pulled him into the room and she wrapped her arms around him, breathing in his soap and musk scent, feeling her chin wobble.

She drew back, and Bucky caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, making her look into his eyes.

“When will you go?”

“Tomorrow,” he whispered.

Darcy blanched. That was no time at all.

“I love you.”

She dissolved into tears at his words. “Oh, God. Why would you tell me that?”

Bucky looked alarmed. “You mean you don’t love me, too?”

Darcy realized her mistake and shook her head.

“No, I mean, of course I love you. I love you, okay?”

She kissed him pointedly, and Bucky sighed against her. Her hands pulled at his shirt, and they moved back toward the bed.

“I love you,” she said again.

“Why?” Bucky asked, and Darcy froze with her hand on his side, the other in his hair.

“What do you mean, why?”

“I don’t know why I’m asking stupid questions,” he blurted, eyes wide. “I’m so nervous.”

“Why?” Darcy asked, wiping her forgotten tears away.

“I’m tryin’ to figure out how to ask you to marry me.”

“What?”

Bucky let out a breath, shaking his head slightly before he sank to the floor. He was on one knee, clearing his throat.

“So I’m down here now,” he murmured. His eyes were still wide. “I know you’ll want to stay here until the war’s over. I can’t make you leave.”

“Sometimes I don’t know if it ever will end, Buck,” she whispered.

“Doll, it will. The Germans wanted us to surrender but we’re close.”

“I hear that every week.”

“Darcy,” he said, and he took her hand in his. “Will you marry me when you get back?”

She didn’t have to think about it. “Of course.”

“Oh, thank God,” Bucky muttered, and he scooped her up with his one arm, and kissed her.

They landed on the bed together, hands pulling at clothes.

They were soon both naked, Bucky’s hand gliding up and down Darcy’s front, teasing her nipple while she moaned in his earr, his teeth grazing her throat.

“You mean it? You’ll marry me?”

His voice was small but it echoed in her head, the way he didn’t sound so sure.

“Bucky, I meant it. I want you. Always.”

She kissed him firmly on the mouth as he slid home. She drew her mouth away, her head falling on the pillow. She moaned as his hips began to move, her thighs wrapped around his waist.

“I’m not movin’ to Philly.”

She laughed, momentarily distracted. “Okay, Bucky.”

They lay together afterwards with Bucky’s head resting on Darcy’s stomach and she stroked his hair lazily while he slept.

-

She sent a letter every week. Bucky bought a house in the meantime, sending a photo of him standing in front of it.

 _Steve took this photo_ , he wrote on the back. Darcy smiled, knowing she’d meet the best friend in good time. The next photo sent was of Steve waving in front of the camera with Bucky behind him, appearing as the irritated blur whose photo was hijacked.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
>  
> 
> [my Tumblr](http://grimeysociety.tumblr.com/)


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